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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

15% drop in KS2 SATS results

40 replies

minionmadess · 09/02/2015 11:15

Would you be concerned if your usually consistent, above average results, always outstanding rated primary school produced this?

Would you want to know why and who would you ask.

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Seeline · 09/02/2015 11:20

Depends on a lot of factors.
Did the kids all 'pass' and it was a drop in those getting level 5/6?
What was the cohort like - eg was there a high proportion of SEN etc?
What size is the cohort - a small number of kids with just one or two performing poorly could have a big impact on the percentages.
What was the national figure in comparison?
What was the value added?

If it is your DCs school I would have thought you could ask the leadership team and/or governors for an explanation.

TeenAndTween · 09/02/2015 11:28

With a one form intake of 30 children, each child is 3.3%, so a drop in 15% is 4 or 5 children. That could well be due to a blip in number of SEN children.

If you want more information look here

and you can see loads more detail for individual schools.

Original poster

minionmadess · 09/02/2015 11:31

Not entirely sure what the figures all represent...

56 children
1.4% SEN
4.5% FSM
N/A EAL

75% got level 4 or above
66% got level 5

Looking at the value added figures it would seem that for all main subjects they are around 100% or just under, so an I presume that the drop relates to relative figures for the group at KS1 sats?

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Killasandra · 09/02/2015 11:32

No I wouldn't be concerned.

Killasandra · 09/02/2015 11:33

It seems that it was just a weaker cohort than the previous one. It happens.

The only stat you care about is your DCs. You only care if they get a level 3 / 4 / 5. Don't worry one bit about the rest of the school / cohort.

morethanpotatoprints · 09/02/2015 11:35

No, because they don't mean anything.
Your child will be leaving anyway, the secondary schools do their own testing/assessment and sats only exist to provide an assessment for Ofsted.
They really don't mean anything.

redskybynight · 09/02/2015 12:47

Well they are hardly "bad" results are they? Why not ask the HT - there may be some tangible reason, but other than that I'd put it down to weaker cohort.

var123 · 09/02/2015 12:56

I think if you ask, the only way to answer will be to refer to specific children's abilities, which the teacher may not do.

If a trend develops, say 2 or 3 consecutive years, then you can ask. However, by them, you'll mostly know the answer anyway.

Original poster

minionmadess · 09/02/2015 13:49

Will view it as a blip then... it just threw me since results have consistently around the 90% mark.

When compared to the 4 closest primary schools we came out bottom in every subject when we are usually at the top.

As some have said I should only concern myself my own dc, which is a fair comment.

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PeruvianFoodLover · 09/02/2015 14:01

minion based on the figures you've posted (I'm assuming they're the combined figures, Not for an individual subjects) it means that 14 of the DCs in the class failed to meet the nationally expected standard of attainment at the end of KS2 - last summer, presumably?

The schools that those 14 pupils now attend will be receiving additional "catch up" funding to support those pupils, because they need to be operating at at least level 4 to be accessing the KS3 curriculum.

If the school has Good/Oustanding leadership, then the Governors would have been all over this, even before the SATS results were published. They would be asking for explainations and what plans are in place to address it. You could ask for a copy of the School Improvement Plan (also known as a School Development Plan) which sets out the plans for targeted improvement within the school.

var123 · 09/02/2015 14:48

The one thing you might see will be the year 6 class teachers will be doing their utmost to have a better year in 2015. So, if your children are borderline level 3 / 4, you will probably see an even greater focus on them than there otherwise would have been.

Did the school get any level 6s last year?

ReallyTired · 09/02/2015 15:36

Has there been any significant changes in the school? What had the trend been like in the last three years. Do you know your child's targets and are they on track to meet them. Is your child happy?

Secondary schools often prefer to retest children. The amount of hot housing makings key stage 2 SATS worthless as tool for assessment.

Original poster

minionmadess · 09/02/2015 15:58

The school opened an extension 18 months ago on a new housing estate 2 miles away to accommodate the extra children from there. Only infants so far but built in mind to go all the way to YR6. The head has been very involved in this and it's all been about the "new school", very little presence from him which I suppose is understandable. I wonder if his eye has been taken off the ball so to speak.

My tds1 is working above expected levels and dts1 is working to expected levels (he has ASD) and is very well supported in school. My dc love the school, as do I, so probably being a tad precious to worry after one years bad results and I don't know what's going on behind the scenes to correct this.

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var123 · 09/02/2015 16:17

The HT has very little to do with the management of the year 6 classroom, unless it is to organise extra teachers for the intervention groups. Maybe there were fewer intervention groups last year?

mrz · 09/02/2015 16:41

We had such a blip two years ago ... 9 new children arrived in Y6 (one actually in the week of the tests never having followed the English National Curriculum) and over half were working at very low levels giving the staff no time to bring them up to expectated levels.

lljkk · 09/02/2015 20:15

I thought that a kid who arrived in SATs week wouldn't count in the published school average. Thought they had to be there a minimum amount of time, something like before January of yr6, maybe?

egnahc · 09/02/2015 21:26

I thought that a kid who arrived in SATs week wouldn't count in the published school average. Thought they had to be there a minimum amount of time, something like before January of yr6, maybe?

No. They are included unless they join after the start of Year 5 from most countries overseas (any non English speaking country).

So a child starting on the Monday of Y6 sats moving from another school would be included.

Caronaim · 09/02/2015 22:58

Maybe who ever is paid to spin the results took a day off?

really, these results mean absolutely diddly squat.

Nada

Can't say it enough.

mrz · 10/02/2015 05:35

Lljkk no they count in the results and this child arrived from an English speaking country although he hadn't been taught the English National Curriculum.(or any curriculum for the previous three years as we later discovered).

var123 · 10/02/2015 09:45

So, its like the census? i.e. where you are on the day of the census not where you normally live?

I guess that's a good rule for taking a survey of exactly where all the children are up to at a point in time, but its unfair on schools to be put in league tables based on children who were never in their school.

I feel sorry for that child Mrz. Imagine moving country, starting at a new school in a foreign culture. Lots of new faces and learning new rules and ways of doing things. Then in the same week being given a series of tests that you can't do. Couldn't the parents have started him (or her) a week later?

PastSellByDate · 10/02/2015 10:32

Hi minion:

My advice is this - one bad year could be any number of things - a blip/ illness related/ etc.... or could be a sign that things are changing for the worse.

I think the reality is that schools are adept at excluding parents from that dissection of what went wrong that year - partly to protect the children/ families concerned - but also because in reality you're an outsider to that cohort/ the staff issues with their teachers over the years/ etc... and therefore it shouldn't be any of your concern.

My experience has been, that many parents generally expressing a bit of concern and repeatedly asking questions - is my child on track for NC L4 or better at KS2 SATs/ was 2013 just a blip?/ is there anything my DC should be working on at home?/ The national curriculum says we should be learning vertical methods but DC doesn't seem to be doing this? etc.... is more likely to send the signal you're aware that there was a 'dip' in performance whilst also signalling you don't want your child to have a similar fate.

I also feel that most schools know that KS2 SATs results in the dull-drums of 60/70% won't attract 'the right sort of pupils' (for which read pupils from academically ambitious families) to their school. So they'll be working hard to turn this around themselves.

HTH

toomanywheeliebins · 10/02/2015 12:17

66% level 5 is high. Level 4's are national av or there about. What about 4b?
You need a trend to be honest and one year is not enough!

mrz · 10/02/2015 17:10

Var his mum planned to start him after the tests but unfortunately social services insisted he start immediately

admission · 10/02/2015 21:46

The figures for FSM and SEN are low compared to national figures and assuming you got the information of the DfE website will be the level of FSM and SEN across the whole school not the year 6 pupils. N/A EAL is saying that they have no pupils who have english as a second language.

The level 4 figure of 75% is below the national average of 79% but the level 5 level at 66% is high though I do not have a national figure to hand.

The real question is the 25% of 56 pupils = 14 pupils who did not get a level 4. This could be because the year group had a lot of pupils with SEN, but the overall SEN figure would not suggest that as the reason. It could be that the pupils all arrived just before the exams and therefore the school did not have the time to help the pupils achieve better, but in an over-subscribed school seems very unlikely.

The most telling statistic would be the value added data for those 14 pupils not the value added data for all the cohort, as that would say whether the school really did the best for these pupils or not. If pupils make exactly the level of progress expected of them then the VA figure would be 100. In the DfE data there is a column entitled
"KS2 test results and progress". Those figures could be revealing especially for the so-called low attainers.

However if you believe the level 5 data one possible explanation would be that they used all their resources in getting all the level 4s to level 5 but ignored all those in the level 3 / 4 band and suffered the consequence. Given the key figure in all league tables is level 4 % this seems a silly thing to do.

Original poster

minionmadess · 10/02/2015 22:25

Thank you...

I've looked over the figures again and I made a mistake...

level 4 = 75%
level 4b = 66%
level 5 = 20%

The VA figures are all between 91% to 100% for all subjects so nearly all of the cohort have made 2 levels of progress between KS1 and KS2.

Yes, the figures for FSM and SEN are school figures not just YR6, although compared to the 3 other local schools are significantly lower.

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